LPOF-Chapter 14 [WIP]

Chapter 14: Run, Rabbit, Run

She was breathing hard as she fled through the forest, whimpering sounds emerging from her mouth with puffs of breath visible in the crisp, chill air.

She paused for a moment, putting a hand on her aching side, wincing at the painful stitch. She drew in gulps of air, trying to still her racing heart and brushed tears away from her eyes. She looked fearfully around her, every crack of dried twigs that lay scattered around the forest floor putting her on alert.

She had no idea where she was or even why she had been brought here. Her feet throbbed with a thousand cuts from debris on the ground, she had  bloodstains on her clothing and dried blood was present everywhere.

She took another deep breath in a vain effort to still her racing heart and she whimpered in terror as she heard what she thought were slow, heavy footsteps coming slowly toward her and a soft, menacing voice giggling with delight like a demented child.

She knew all too well who that voice belonged to: the emerald-green eyed man with a look of pure menace about him that belied his striking good looks. She'd been fooled by that supposedly friendly countenance only to realize her mistake once they had arrived at the old, dilapidated building. She'd demanded to be taken home immediately; he'd laughed at her, a menacing low laugh of pure malice as he pressed a foul smelling piece of cloth against her mouth and nose.

When she became aware of the world again, she was bound and gagged in a horribly dark place. She'd struggled fruitlessly whenever the man wasn't looking, cursing her bad luck that had led her to this claustrophobic hole in the ground. She couldn't help but think of her father's admonitions that she had shrugged off: “Don't talk to strangers.” How she wished that she had listened now that she was a prisoner here.

She had no idea why she had been brought here or even where she was; all she knew was that the emerald-green eyes man had told her that she was 'perfect' and her foolish sixteen year old pride had blossomed with those empty words. Whatever it was that he had in mind for her, she had the sinking feeling that it wasn't good. And now, as she ran for her life in this maze like forest, she knew that her foolishness would more than likely cost her dearly.

She had a thousand cuts on her skin from the man and his sidekick and one deeper wound in her side where a penknife had been driven into her body, the resulting pain unlike anything she had ever experienced before in her life. She had heard stories from her father about the victims of senseless, and often horrible crimes, but never, in her wildest nightmares, would she have imagined that she would take her place among them.

I'll never see my Dad or family again, she thought in despair, a single tear slipping from her right eye, coursing down her dirty and grimy face. And all because I didn't listen...

She fought down the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes but it was in vain; she couldn't help the choked sob that emerged from her tightly pressed lips. She buried her face in her hands as she wept, hot scalding tears running down her face in rivers and, though she did her best to suppress it, loud choking sobs torn from deep within her.

She'd been the sure one; so certain that she knew people better than her Dad did. His job was to investigate crimes and he'd warned her repeatedly about staying away from strangers. She'd merely scoffed it off, saying that she knew her way around well enough that she didn't need to worry about being kidnapped.

She closed her eyes rightly shut as she remembered the heated argument that had followed. She didn't mean the terrible things she'd said to her Dad; the stricken look on his face after she'd spit it out made that abundantly clear. She wished now that she hadn't stormed out but instead waited to calm down and then apologize.

“I'm sorry, Daddy,” she whimpered, opening her red-rimmed eyes, her lips trembling, “I'm so so sorry... I didn't mean what I said...”

She looked up at the grey sky. It would be dark soon and she had no idea what to do next.

Please, she thought desperately, her heart hammering in her chest, please, someone...help me...!

A sharp cracking sound behind her caused her to jump, a thin scream being torn from her dry throat before she forced her legs to move, wincing in pain from her torn and bleeding feet. She heard, or thought she heard, a menacing, deep throated chuckle repeating a single sentence in a high sing song voice, “Run, rabbit, run!” that seemed to echo in the silent forest that surrounded her.

She drew in huge, gulping breaths as she began running again, forcing her nearly exhausted body into a parody of a run, her arms pumping furiously. She ran, heaving gulps of air taken into her burning lungs and screamed in pain as she stepped on a pile of broken twigs, one of them penetrating her left foot. Crying, she hobbled away, little drops of blood staining the forest floor behind her.

Her teeth gritted and ignoring the excruciating pain she was in, she tried to keep up the pace but she was slowing down now, much to her horror. She couldn't stop; she had to keep running or the bad man would get her. She knew this to be an absolute certainty: if she stopped running, she would die.

Run, Rabbit, Run...

She had to keep running, no matter how much pain she was in; no matter if the wound in her side wept blood that stained her torn and dirty white t-shirt, her torn and bloodied jeans that bore the remnants of the knives that were used on her by the emerald-green eyed man and his partner.

She had cried out in agony as they stabbed her, her screams muffled by the dirty handkerchief  that the blond-haired man had stuffed into her mouth before tying another around the bottom half of her face. She couldn't understand why they were stabbing her; she didn't understand their garbled words, “sacrifice,” “perfect distraction” that they kept muttering over and over as the knives penetrated her body.

She had heard them moan in what sounded like distracted pleasure as they tortured her and it made her shiver with disgust as her mind shrieked in fear at what they were doing to her. How could anyone enjoy hurting someone to get that much pleasure out of it? How could anyone enjoy hurting another human being like that unless they were monsters themselves?

She stumbled and nearly fell and managed to pick herself up but tripped over a fallen branch shortly afterward and falling to the ground, skinning her knee quite badly. She grabbed her leg, bent at the knee, and rolled from side to side on the ground, wailing in pain. Her cries and shrieks echoed in the dense silence around her; the wind whistling through the nearly bare branches of the gnarled trees that surrounded her on every side. She brought her wounded hand up to her face and was horrified to see blood-her blood-on her shaking fingers and palm.

A sharp snapping sound brought her once again to full alert and she stopped rolling, her loud cries slowly subsiding into choked whimpers. Her eyes darted around the thick copse of trees as she desperately tried to locate as to where, and from which direction, the sound had come.

She couldn't see anything moving in the twilight but she knew that someone, or something, was out there; she could hear soft, heavy breathing coming from somewhere close by and a very soft, but menacing chuckle.